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Social Darwinism and nineteenth-century Philology: tracing the ideology through the historical press

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Vol. 56 No. 1 (2021)

Abstract

This work seeks to demonstrate that Darwinian thought found its origins in supremacist conceptions and that this thought not only marked nineteenth-century Biology, but also the rest of social and human disciplines, because Biology was the maximum exponent of what was understood as science. Not only the methodological presuppositions of Biology were taken as premises, but also its supremacist conception. And Philology was no exception. Through the search in the nineteenth-century historical press, we want to show that these ideas influenced society, but also Hispanic philological thought in the nineteenth century. The reconstruction of the alleged Indo-European language or Aryan language was linked to the reconstruction of a more evolved and morally better culture than the rest of societies/cultures. In this way, racial supremacism found a supposedly scientific basis for totally aberrant values. The Hispanic Philology of the XIX century was also an accomplice in this process.

Keywords:

Darwinian Biology, Supremacism, 19th century Philology, Press

Author Biography

Juan Carlos Tordera Yllescas, Universitat de València

Para correspondencia, dirigirse a: Juan Carlos Tordera Yllescas (juan.tordera@uv.es), Facultat de Magisteri, Avda. Tarongers, 4. 46022, Valencia. ORCID 0000-0002-6297-4180.

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How to Cite
Tordera Yllescas, J. C. (2021). Social Darwinism and nineteenth-century Philology: tracing the ideology through the historical press. Boletín De Filología, 56(1), pp. 171–202. Retrieved from https://boletinfilologia.uchile.cl/index.php/BDF/article/view/64202
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Boletín de Filología
Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades
Universidad de Chile
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